Ryan Gosling in ‘Star Wars’: Everything We Know About Shawn Levy’s Planned Movie

Sometimes you have to put a little actual star power into Star Wars. These space operas have a tradition of drawing on new and rising talent to play their leads, but even George Lucas knew that every now and then a familiar face—like Alec Guinness or Liam Neeson—is a welcome sight in a galaxy far, far away. It can also help galvanize the production, as is the case with Ryan Gosling reportedly circling the Star Wars film director Shawn Levy hopes to make.

The filmmaker behind Deadpool and Wolverine and the Night at the Museum movies, and one of the producers and directors of Stranger Things, has been developing an installment of the space saga with Lucasfilm since 2022. Many other prominent directors—ranging from Rian Johnson to Patty Jenkins and Taika Waititi—have been doing the same, though none of those projects have moved forward into production. Lucasfilm has kept Star Wars in a feature-film holding pattern ever since 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker, choosing to focus instead on Disney+ streaming shows like The Mandalorian, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Andor, Ahsoka and the recent Skeleton Crew and The Acolyte. Fans have been impatient for a return to movies, however, and next year’s The Mandalorian and Grogu (which recently wrapped principal photography) will bridge the streaming and cinematic universes.

Levy and Gosling’s Star Wars film is poised to be the immediate follow-up to that streaming film—if a deal first revealed by Borys Kit of The Hollywood Reporter comes to fruition. Two sources confirm to Vanity Fair that the scene-stealer from Barbie is in talks to join Levy; together, they could rule the galaxy. Lucasfilm declined any official comment about what may or may not be in the works.

Locking in an A-lister like Gosling would put the film on a fast-track into production, breaking the logjam that has stalled other Star Wars titles. The list of rumored and announced franchise films that have fallen apart or been shuttered has grown long in recent years, but Levy’s project is a surprise in the development pipeline that has been quietly racing ahead.

In April 2023, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy announced at the Star Wars Celebration fan gathering that the company had plans to make three other films. One was a historical epic about the origins of the Force from Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny filmmaker James Mangold, which would take place in the distant past of the Star Wars universe. Mangold’s movie may still happen, but he shifted focus after his Indiana Jones outing to make his planned Bob Dylan film, A Complete Unknown, with Timothée Chalamet. (Again, the availability of talent tends to dictate which projects move forward and which wait.)

Another movie in the works was a return to Daisy Ridley‘s Rey character, who went from a desperate scavenger in 2015’s The Force Awakens to a Force-powerful savior of the galaxy The Rise of Skywalker. Lost producer Damon Lindelof had been developing a story about a much older Rey and the young Jedi she helped trained (with Helen Mirren topping the wish-list of actors to play the character), but that notion was abandoned in favor of following up with Ridley’s version of the hero, closer in time to when audiences would have last seen her. Oscar-winning short-film director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy was signed on to direct.

The third project was The Mandalorian and Grogu, with Lucasfilm’s chief creative officer Dave Filoni at the helm. The writer-producer-director started out in the Star Wars universe working directly with Lucas on The Clone Wars animated series back in the mid-2000s, and over the decades has helped guide and shape its expanding story universe. His film, with Pedro Pascal returning as the masked bounty hunter alongside his little green ward, is now in post production and set for release on May 22, 2026.

If Levy’s film signs Gosling and maintains its momentum, it could be in theaters by 2027. The screenplay has been drafted by author Jonathan Tropper, who previously worked with Levy on the grieving family comedy This Is Where I Leave You, based on Tropper’s own novel. “I’m happy that’s one secret I don’t have to keep,” Levy told On Demand Entertainment at the red carpet premiere of Deadpool & Wolverine. “We have an idea that’s really exciting to us, and exciting to Kathy Kennedy and Dave Filoni. One never knows if development reaches the starting gate, but my hope is that it will.”

He and Tropper later collaborated on the time-travel coming-of-age tale The Adam Project, starring Ryan Reynolds, who had starred in Levy’s 2020 comedy Free Guy, about a video game’s background character who becomes self-aware. Levy and Reynolds would again team up on Deadpool and Wolverine with Hugh Jackman, another Levy collaborator from their 2011 boxing robot film Real Steel.

That rundown of past projects shows Levy has been training to take on the Star Wars universe for more than a decade. Broad ensemble cast? Check. Breaking the space-time barrier? Check. Brawling droids? Check. His work directing some of the most memorable episodes of Stranger Things has also showcased a love of nostalgia and fantasy. Levy has been a lifelong Star Wars geek, leaping at the chance to play in the galaxy—even if only briefly.

In a 2023 interview with Josh Horowitz for Happy Sad Confused, Levy said: “I was one of those kids the 70s and ’80s. For some reason it’s [Return of the] Jedi that I remember seeing the most times theaters. At least a dozen times. It definitely shaped me it.”

He worked with cinematographer Dan Mindel (the director of photography on The Force Awakens) on a 2015 commercial for Duracell about a brother and sister powering up their lightsabers on Christmas morning with the batteries. Later in the spot, the little sister—dressed in a Rey costume—harnesses the Force to free herself from some stormtroopers. Although only a minute long, the ad became the subject of fan obsession because it hinted at Rey’s Jedi-like abilities more than a month before her big screen appearance.

Levy has been keen for a return to the galaxy far, far away ever since, although he has resisted revealing anything about his Star Wars story, not even who the main characters might be. “I definitely can’t share anything,” Levy said at the Deadpool & Wolverine premiere. “I have been so well trained by Stranger Things and Marvel that my lips are sealed.”

But on another episode of Happy Sad Confused from August 2024, Levy did share a bit more about the general timeline he hoped to explore. “There’s only so many times that Star Wars movies can revisit the same section of the timeline. I don’t want to do a Star Wars movie that is redundant to others, nor am I interested in doing one that has to serve another movie,” Levy said.

Asked what defined a good Star Wars movie, Levy answered: “I think that there is certainly the Force and a connection to something bigger than our individual selves, and the way that that can make us powerful. Those themes, combined with visual delight and wish fulfillment, that’s Star Wars to me.”